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SpaceX ships another huge propellant tank to South Texas BFR test site

Or at least someone smarter than me does:
http://physicsfromtheedge.blogspot.com/

Job opening to work on actual science instead of hand-wavy, platform nine and three quarters, oompa-loompa dark matter magic.

There's no earthly way of knowing
Which direction we are going
There's no knowing where we're rowing
Or which way the river's flowing
Is it raining, is it snowing
Is a hurricane a-blowing
Not a speck of light is showing
So the danger must be growing
Are the fires of Hell a-glowing
Is the grisly reaper mowing
Yes, the danger must be growing
For the rowers keep on rowing
And they're certainly not showing
Any signs that they are slowing

Pocahontas is no Indian! She doesn't look like Indian to me and she doesn't look like Indian to Indians. cherokee.org/News/Stories/20181015_Cherokee-Nation-responds-to-Senator-Warrens-DNA-test

Russian Orthodox Church severs links with Constantinople

In a major religious split, the Russian Orthodox Church has cut ties with the body seen as the spiritual authority of the world's Orthodox Christians.

The break came after the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople recognised the independence of the Ukrainian Church from Moscow.

The row is being described as the greatest Orthodox split since the schism with Catholicism in 1054.

Relations soured after Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

Many Ukrainians accuse the Russian Church of siding with Russia-backed separatists in the east.

Russia sees Kiev as the historic cradle of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Church now fears losing many of its 12,000 parishes in Ukraine.

Constantinople holds sway over more than 300 million Orthodox Christians across the world. The Russian Orthodox Church is by far the biggest.

Also at Reuters and The Guardian.

See also: Archbishop’s defiance threatens Putin’s vision of Russian greatness

It turns out that increasing spending and decreasing tax revenue isn't good for the bank balance.

The federal deficit ballooned to $779 billion in the just-ended fiscal year — a remarkable tide of red ink for a country not mired in recession or war.

The government is expected to borrow more than a trillion dollars in the coming year, in part to make up for tax receipts that have been slashed by GOP tax cuts.

Corporate tax collections fell by 31 percent in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, despite robust corporate profits. That's hardly surprising after lawmakers cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21.

Income taxes withheld from individuals grew by 1 percent. Overall tax receipts were flat. As a share of the economy, tax receipts shrank to 16.5 percent of GDP, from 17.2 percent the previous year.

Federal Deficit Jumps 17 Percent As Tax Cuts Eat Into Government Revenue

This is very much a first draft of an essay I've been wanting to put together for some time. Please be critical. I want you to tell me if you uncover any glaring logical flaws (or even grammatical ones!). I want you to tell me if you disagree or even think I'm being an egocentric asshole¹ or an insane crackpot hippie! I also want you to tell me if any of these ideas make sense or resonate with you and also if you can point me to anywhere else you've already come across them before. It's quite long and a bit heavy so thank you very much if you do decide to take the time to read it.

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Discussing one's own mortality may produce an air of discomfort or awkwardness in some western societies and yet for those of us that tend to reflect and introspect it remains a topic that we cannot help but contemplate from time to time.

As we go through life, we all soon realize to our dismay that none of us are getting any younger--and anyone with a head for figures that's watched the decades pass in their grandparents' and parents' lives will soon gain an all too sharp understanding of just how rapidly their own life seems to be passing, measured against its estimated length.

Some people find comfort in religion. As I approached adulthood and gained a greater understanding of probability, logic, and the scientific method, I quickly cast aside pretty much all religious beliefs and also the overwhelming majority of anecdotal evidence for the popular so-called Unexplained on the basis that extraordinary claims do indeed need extraordinary evidence to be worthy of serious consideration. I now understand that the probability of bizarre coincidences occurring is massively higher than most humans intuitively think (but hey, they still play the lottery--I guess they're only willing to consider the improbable events that make them feel happy!)--and that easily accounts for many accounts of supernatural phenomenon. Outright fraud in many cases is much more likely as well than any of these events requiring new science (or religious faith) to explain.

Despite all of this skepticism I've always tried to remain open-minded. I am fascinated by the most fundamental questions of what consciousness, reality and existence are made of, if you like--the limits of science and the boundaries between physics and philosophy. I became especially interested in the philosophy of mind and first person consciousness. Much of this involves speculation, but if you're careful you can try to be at least logically consistent and consider which theories are the most attractive based on things like simplicity or drawing parallels with other established theories in science.

Our own reality is by its very nature, subjective. It is as if the entire universe is perpetually centered on our own body's location in space. Not just in space, but conveniently the universal "now" also coincides with just that moment in our own life that we thought we had got up to. Unless you're a raging solipsist, you'll probably acknowledge that physically this phenomenon seems to be related to our senses and our brains. My universe feels centered on here and now simply because I only have access to my own memories and the most recent of those memories are of sights and sounds and thoughts that relate to this very time and place. I feel safe enough to call it my brain and my memories because the memories have a continuity stretching back into my body's past all the while accompanied by a strong sense of identity.

At least for now, I feel hopeful that I may continue to exist in the above physical and mental form for the near future because it seems a fair bet that the apparent continuity in my past can be extrapolated at least a little way into the future as well. Especially when I observe other people, both older and younger than I, also seeming to persist (well, at least in a physical, third person form). Moments seem to pass consecutively whilst we are alive--but we can't prove it--and at the point of death, all bets are off--for all we know perhaps our perspective even loops right back to the moment of our own birth or conception, if you'll forgive my wild speculation!

We now have a reasonable understanding from neuroscience of how the information content of memories can be represented physically inside our brains. That strongly suggests that if the brain is lost, the information represented in the memories will be lost for that person along with it. Some religions and some dualist philosophies (perhaps Cartesian Dualism) will suggest that varying amounts of that information will be preserved somehow separately from the physical brain. To me that seems highly unlikely because it implies some kind of massive redundancy in reality. Brains and memories are highly complex and took millions of years to evolve physically, so it just seems odd that there should be some other storage mechanism present at the same time that--let's note--also persists after the brain is long gone. If such a mechanism were to exist it would seem awfully convenient, as if perhaps some benevolent deity had chosen to conjure it up just for the sake of human comfort.² Anyway, after death what use would our memories even be unless this aforementioned deity has also conjured up a redundant reality similar enough to our own for the things we have learnt in our Earthly existence to be relevant and useful in the new one?

So what do you really lose if you lose all your memories? Your own personal interests, thoughts and feelings are not as unique as you maybe like to think they are! You like music from a particular band? That's great. Don't worry, there are thousands of other people that will still like it too for the same reasons after you are gone. Even when that music itself is long forgotten in the mists of time, every attribute that made it great to you will almost certainly be realized again, albeit in a different configuration, in other, future pieces of music. You like running? Come on: that's not even unique to homo sapiens! You like a very particular piece of engineering on a particular model of train? So perhaps, did the designers and you likely won't be the first or last person to cast their eye over it with some degree of appreciation. Moreover when you reduce it to a sum of the qualities that you like about it, such qualities will doubtless pop up again, much like the music. What's that, the particular configuration is important to you? I submit that that doesn't make it better. Other very particular and arbitrary configurations of qualities will be just as important to other individuals. It's the familiarity that you crave. Other people have familiarity too, just for subtly different things.

Of course, at some time or other just about every one of us likes to create rather than just consume. If you invent something, discover some new science or create some works of art then these are entities that truly are unique to you. It might be painful contemplating having to let go of that sense of ownership and pride when your body and memory dies. But you needn't really worry. If your discovery has wider appeal or helps other people make their activities more efficient or gives them a sense of wellbeing, then it's likely of course that it will persist after you are gone, with them. If it doesn't have wider appeal, well then you're being incredibly egotistical wanting other people to spend time and energy preserving it. It had its time and place and purpose within your own life, but it's no great loss when the day comes that you have no further need of it.

Other than creating and consuming, something notable that brings many of us satisfaction in life is helping other people. This could be raising a child, sharing time and resources with a friend or loved one, or helping strangers. It could be doing charitable work that benefits other beings indirectly. We'll doubtless worry about leaving the people we care about behind³ but at least we will have made a positive contribution to their lives and so, hopefully, to the wider world.

When thinking about our own demise, we may lament the loss of our body, our personality, our social interactions, and even our daily routine. But then, from your own perspective, your life doesn't just encompass you. Everything. Everything you see and hear and read about. Every historic event you discover. Every idea. Every mathematical theorem you understand. Every movie you watch. Every other being's life that you observe. All of it is a part of your own life experiences. Your view of the universe and your memories of it are what really make up your life when viewed from your own perspective. To the third person, on the outside looking in at you, it couldn't be more different of course. They don't look at you and see an entire universe. They just see a talking, moving body, much smaller and more limited in scope. That body and brain. and the particular things it does and says, are very probably lost when death occurs. But all those outward things that your body perceived and felt and enjoyed through its life--those things mostly will go on existing. I don't know about you, but I find that somewhat comforting.

I think that the more you can absorb yourself in and grow to love the beauty of the longer-lived aspects of reality--the sound of bird song, the changing shapes and shades of clouds, the sharp contours of mountains, the less worried you need feel about the decline and demise of your own brain and body--because the love of these things is not unique to you--it has been and will be enjoyed by countless other humans throughout history and likely other beings too. You may still trouble yourself with the fact that even these things are probably less than eternal, that our very universe may too have a finite history.⁴ Perhaps then seeking delight in the beauty of mathematics may provide further comfort.

Of course even if the above reflections allow you to become somewhat comfortable with what disappears when your brain is no longer capable of storing and recalling memories, you might still be dreading death on the basis that you like experiencing life and just want a lot more of it. This is understandable but I take some comfort in the fact that some sort of reincarnation seems very logically plausible. Even if you're a die-hard materialist, you have to acknowledge that it was possible for you to be incarnated on one occasion. Why should it not be possible for another such event to happen? It probably doesn't have to be an identical event. Just similar enough (whatever that means). It doesn't matter how many centillions of millennia it takes for you to be incarnated a second time, since you will have no awareness at all of any passage of time without a brain or senses to measure it with. This is a sort of variant of the Anthropic Principle: that is that we have all found ourselves in a conscious state because it simply isn't coherent for someone to be experiencing non-existence.⁵

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^{1. I'd be surprised as I thought this is more about getting away from selfish interests, if not full on ego death. Hey, don't some of you more right wing Soylentils think the left is all about the loss of individual identity? Perhaps you think what I've written here reeks of that. If so, tell me more.}

^{2. You might think that brain injuries causing obvious lasting memory loss are evidence against it, but the religious folk may postulate that the information is only made available again once death has occurred.}

^{3. They'll probably do OK. Maybe you think you're more important to them than you really are [joking!].}

^{4. In some physical models of 4D spacetime, the past is just as real as our perceived present moment, in much the same way that two locations in space are equally real. In that case we need not fret over our universe's demise, when from a different perspective it will still be existing.}

^{5. We can of course conceive of nightmarish Purgatories where a mind is able to think on some minimal level but lacks any sensory input but given that thinking for us seems to depend on the evolution of a physical brain, the scenario doesn't strike me as something, hopefully, that would be especially likely or common.}

A Suicidal Nanny, an Underground Industry and 3 Babies Stabbed

The Case of Jane Doe Ponytail

China’s Media Crackdown Spreads to Hong Kong

Hong Kong’s expulsion of a British journalist after he led a foreign correspondents’ meeting with a pro-independence activist is, first and foremost, an attempt by Beijing to tamp down any dissent in the former British colony.

Hong Kong officials have not given a reason for rejecting a journalist visa for Victor Mallet, the Asia news editor for The Financial Times. China’s only comment has been that Hong Kong authorities are within their right to do so. But that’s the typical legalistic evasiveness of authoritarian regimes when they do something they know is hard and embarrassing to defend.

The authorities have never criticized Mr. Mallet’s reporting. But he was the main spokesman for the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents’ Club in August when it hosted a talk by Andy Chan, head of a political party that called for Hong Kong’s independence from China. Hong Kong and Beijing officials blasted the event in advance and subsequently banned the party.

Beijing took back control of Hong Kong from the British in 1997 after nearly a century of colonial rule, and agitation toward independence has never pleased China’s leadership. Hong Kong as an “inalienable” part of China is written into the territory’s Basic Law.

UK says Hong Kong rejection of FT journalist visa politically motivated

Vote.GOP twitter.com/EricTrump/status/1049696454292500480

And by the way, that includes our beautiful Blacks. If African-American unemployment is now at the lowest number in history, median income the highest, and you then add all of the other things I have done, how do Democrats, who have done NOTHING for African-Americans but TALK, win the Black Vote? And it will only get better!

Tennessee death row inmate wants electric chair as 'lesser of two evils'

A condemned Tennessee inmate wants to die in the electric chair, rather than by lethal injection, calling electrocution the “lesser of two evils,” his lawyer said.

Edmund George Zagorski, 63, is set to pay the ultimate price on Thursday for the 1983 slayings of John Dotson and Jimmy Porter — 35-year-old victims who were planning to buy 100 pounds of marijuana from Zagorski.

Lethal injection is the primary form of execution in Tennessee, but inmates whose offenses happened before January 1999 may opt for the electric chair.

The Volunteer State is one of nine that still includes the electric chair as a form of execution.

Kelley Henry, Zagorki's defense lawyer, said lethal injection is a long, brutal process that can take up to 18 minutes.

“Faced with the choice of two unconstitutional methods of execution, Mr. Zagorski has indicated that if his execution is to move forward, he believes that the electric chair is the lesser of two evils,” Henry said. “Ten to 18 minutes of drowning, suffocation and chemical burning is unspeakable.”

Use of the electric chair is rare, with just 14 of the 871 executions happening via electrocution since 2000, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The last electrocution was in Virginia in January 2013.